Today, the Thai people are voting for Parliment members. I joined Piyawat for his voting experience and learned a lot about Thai Government. (Since we don't have a Parlimentary government in America, a lot of this was new to me.)
Piyawat's polling station was in a school, and actually the set-up looked very similar to precints back in the States. He showed his National ID card and was given two colored sheets of paper. One sheet had numbers and checkboxes. The other had party names and checkboxes.
The way I understand it is that the sheet of numbers is used to vote for individuals who are running to represent your district. All of the election posters list the name of the candidate and his or her number. I didn't realize that you actually have to remember the number because the names are not on the sheet. Luckily they usually match the number of the party, which helps you remember.
The sheet of party names, on the other hand, is to elect at-large candidates for the entire country. I've never heard of such an at-large system, but I think the way it works is as follows: If Party #1 gets 5% of the vote, then they get to pick 5 at-large members in Parliment. If they get 25%, they get to chose 25 members. These are in addition to the named candidates who are representing the districts.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about the election is the speed in which the election posters are removed. Apparently, the posters are recyclable and therefore valuable (especially to those with very low incomes). The polls closed at 4 PM; by 5 PM, 90% of the posters were gone.
I can't say that I am sorry to see them go, even though I enjoyed practicing my Thai reading as I walked down the street. That is, except for the poster of Chuwit with a sledgehammer; I liked that one!
(This picture was taken from the always excellent 2bangkok.com. They have devoted an entire page to election posters.)
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Well, Stu...
Congratulations on finding and buying a condo! After a whole month of looking, I am sure you are glad to be done. Now you just have to dread the physical move, eh?
I am about to move to Southern Maryland. I should be an hour south of D.C.
I don't know if the SuperBowl makes it over to your parts, but it was a good one. The commercials weren't all that great. One by Budweiser praised the troops coming back from Iraq by everyone in the airport mouthing "Thank you". That was touching. All that I remember beyond that is monkeys.
Well, glad to see you are posting again. I know you have to take a break from it now and again, heavens knows I do.
Take care, and again, congratulations on the condo!
Thanks Buzz :)
I'm not sure if the Super Bowl was shown on TV here in Thailand or not. I'm sure it was, but it might have been at 2 AM. The other problem is that Usually when they show American sports on TV here, they take out the commercials. It makes the game go faster, but defeats (one of) the highlights of watching the Super Bowl.
- Stuart
Yeah, congrats on the condo Mr. Homeowner! I heard about the Thai elections on the radio today & thought of you. Glad everything's going good.
So what does the poster say?
Beth, the words on this poster are too hard for me, but according to a friend it says something along the lines of:
"Wipe out the cheats
Uncover the bad guys
I'm not afraid of the dark influences"
In other words, he was basically running on an anti-corruption ticket. Oh, and by the way, he won.